To Sleep Perchance to Dream

So I picked up this book at the library, Sleepless in America:Practical Strategies to help your family get the sleep it deserves by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka. I thought it might be useful to me. Honestly, bedtime has been a nightmare at our house since the baby came. Brooke particularly has been completely off a schedule. Before the baby, I was putting her to bed at 6:30 p.m. and then staggering the rest of the kids. That worked beautifully and we were all resting much better. But then the baby came and we are all walking around like zombies--all except Jonathan who sleeps like an angel.

I started reading it while sitting with Josef as he did his homework. Practically everything the author writes was really making sense to me. By the time I hit page 90, I had some ideas to try this evening.

Basically, the premise of the book is that many children today misbehave because they are chronically sleep-deprived. She lists things that distract children, overstimulate and stress children and parents, depriving them of soothing bedtimes. Using a great object lesson, she teaches you how to talk to children about what upsets them or makes them wild and then how to soothe them. Basically, you make a volcano in a glass while asking kids a series of questions. Once you've made the volcano explode, then you discuss ways to soothe the volcano. My boys and I had a great time making the volanoes and I learned a lot about each of them.

Tonight, I worked on creating a more soothing, peaceful environment the whole evening, as opposed to the last few minutes before bedtime. Brooke and I had a lovely 30 minutes together, reading stories, brushing teeth, etc. By the end of the 30 minutes, she was peacefully sleeping.

Josef and Trent kept each other up, but I went to them and practiced some of their soothing ideas and within a few minutes both were settled down to sleep.

The best news of all is that I didn't feel stressed and irritated after bedtime. I felt relaxed and happy.

I felt like I had quite an epiphany. I'm extremely good at calming fussy babies. People always remark on how calm my babies are. But, I haven't applied any of those soothing techniques on my older kids, assuming that they could self-regulate. I feel kind of stupid that I didn't figure that out sooner. Anyhow, I'm going to work more diligently on creating a more soothing and calming environment at home, especially after school.

And yes, I highly recommend the book.